Birtley Lintels were delighted to donate a number of lintels and bespoke structural beams to the BBC home renovation series DIY SOS: The Big Build. This was to help the Bolton based Taylor Mann family: Custody officer Martin and now full time carer, Heather who cares for their son William (9) who has very severe Autism and daughters Scarlett (8) and Penelope (1.)

Regional Sales Manager for Birtley Group, Steve Loraine went along to the site to celebrate and witness the family seeing the life changing improvements to their home for the first time as part of the programmes ‘Big Reveal’.

DIY SOS: The Big Build is the BBC’s flagship home renovation programme; it has been running for 18 years, and attracts up to 5 million viewers per episode in its prime time slot on BBC One. The award winning show, presented by Nick Knowles and his team of Billy, Mark, Chris and Jules, takes on extremely Big Builds across the country in just nine days.

The Project

The project was complex, due to the nature and severity of Williams’s condition he is extremely hypersensitive to noise. Being in such close proximity to his siblings is often just too much for him to bear. William is unable to talk and cannot communicate this by any other means than crying and becoming distressed. He finds sleeping extremely difficult and is often awake through the night, which is impacting his sisters as he continually disturbs them.

William’s severe condition also means that he is not aware of danger and actively attempts to climb through the upstairs windows, despite Martins and Heathers best attempts at securing the handles. He also turns the taps on in the upstairs bathroom leading to numerous floods in the house; William cannot be left unsupervised upstairs for his own safety and the risk of causing further damage to the house.

Martin began the process of creating a third bedroom to allow William to have his own space, but due to financial constraints and struggling to fit the work in around his job, he was unable to progress any further. This left William sharing a bedroom with his eldest sister Scarlett and Penelope sharing a room with Martin and Heather.

It was clear the family’s current house was unfit for purpose and a massive strain on the family’s life.

The house needed a downstairs extension, under permitted development, with all the bespoke care provision that William and the family needed: separate bedrooms, calm space for William, a social space for the family and the safe proofing the entire ground floor and rear garden.

The Big Reveal

Steve Loraine, Regional Sales Manager for Birtley Group was delighted to attend the Big Reveal, he comments:

‘We were thrilled to donate the lintels and bespoke steel beams for this project and to see first-hand the Taylor Mann family’s reaction to their new home. There was a real energy around the site and it was amazing to see how the local community, businesses and suppliers had rallied around to make this gruelling 9 day project happen, to build a fully fitted out extension in such a short space of time is nothing short of amazing. The changes made to the house will really help this family and we are proud to have helped. ’

A date for the program to air is yet to be announced, but we will be sure to publicise this as soon as we know.

Birtley lintels is part of Birtley Group, home to three of the most trusted brands in UK construction including plasterer’s accessories and builder’s metalwork manufacturer – Expamet, and composite door manufacturer – Bowater by Birtley.

Alongside them is Birtley Galvanizing, one of the most advanced galvanizing facilities in Europe, this allowed Birtley Lintels to galvanize the bespoke steel beams for the project in- house cutting down the lead time and delivering exceptional quality and weather protection.

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Part of the Birtley Group

Birtley began life as Birtley Building Products in 1965, based at the current site in County Durham. Originally a steel fabricator for the area’s mining and power generation industries, the company made its first steel lintels in 1967. Since then, Birtley has grown from reliable local supplier to a UK-wide force in construction design technology and product development.

In 1889, the British Metal Expansion Company was established in Hartlepool. It had sole European rights for the manufacture of expanded metal mesh, mainly for use as reinforcement and lath in the rapidly expanding sector of concrete construction. The business that grew from these early days later changed its name to Expamet.

Acquired by Birtley Group in 2015, Bowater Doors is a nationally-known name synonymous with top quality and imaginative composite residential door design and manufacture.

The product portfolio offers exclusive ranges for trade installers and a retail range providing doors direct to consumer and social housing organisations.

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